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Post by mozie on Nov 1, 2024 10:27:07 GMT -5
Playing polar rescue, release and thrust today
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Post by VectorX on Nov 1, 2024 10:44:33 GMT -5
Played Bedlam and Release today in the tournament. Feel free to add all my playing and Fredrik's playing to the WIKI. Thanks, I'll keep an eye on all that  |
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Post by Chainsaw on Nov 1, 2024 11:17:11 GMT -5
Played Rip Off, Release, MarineFox and Every Day is Halloween today for Vector War XIV and International Play your Vectrex day. No picutres, because I didn't manage to reach good scores.
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Post by Sketcz on Nov 1, 2024 12:03:58 GMT -5
Played lots of games today, including Mine Storm, plus a varied mix of retail and homebrew. However, my thoughts have mostly been on:
A Crush of Lucifer
It was quite expensive at £70 delivered to the UK (shipping was painful!). But I find it a fascinating enigma.
We don't know who made it. More than 40 years after it started development, and I'm flying through its 3D world wondering what its creator's thoughts were. Their hopes and aspirations. Their feelings at not being able to finish it. Are they aware it was found and released? What do they make of the overlay and manual, the story, the extras and changes, done by fans to make it complete? How close is it to what they envisioned when starting?
Mostly I pondered why we haven't found this person, despite knowing who made all the other games. Surely it would be easy enough to track down and ask all of them? Mark Indictor says he'd never even heard of it.
Was it a fresh faced young employee? Someone into heavy metal and the occult? Was it one of the veteran staff? Anyone who was 30 in 1982 will be over 70 today - if they're even still alive. Our window to speak with the creators of the Vectrex and its games is rapidly closing.
I'm surprised there aren't more Vectrex interviews out there. This isn't like obscure Japanese developers - they are all English speaking Americans, and likely traceable through LinkedIn, social media, and other contacts.
There should be a book filled with interviews with all the Vectrex staff, covering all the retail games, and all the homebrew games (yes, ALL the homebrew, which is so poorly documented). Maybe even a Netflix documentary.
Today I played the last known legacy retail game for the Vectrex. I did not beat my high score, but I had a lot of fun. I still think that third section with the boxes is too damn long though!
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Post by Chainsaw on Nov 1, 2024 17:10:19 GMT -5
That is an awesome and true text Sketcz. You're absolutely right about A Crush of Lucifer. And yeah, seems the times are over, that shipping from US to Europe is cheap. Also experienced similar crazy shipping costs from EU countries to Switzerland (not EU) independent of the distance. Anyway, if I see something nice or new for the Vectrex that I want, then I order it :-) Life is to short to miss cool Vectrex stuff :-)
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Post by mozie on Nov 1, 2024 18:05:45 GMT -5
I feel the creators vision for crush of lucifer was more than what was possible for them at the time using what limited resources were available and at some stage this was realised and abandoned by whoever the developer was, it was certainly a very ambitious project for the time when compared to the library already released.
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Post by hcmffm on Nov 1, 2024 19:02:49 GMT -5
Happy IPYVD! I've played Every Day is Halloween, Vectrexagon, Star Castle, and Rip Off, today.
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Post by VectorX on Nov 1, 2024 23:30:59 GMT -5
Whoo, quite the game of Thrust! Couple dumb deaths early on, was down to one ship (AGAIN) right near the end of level 6 of reverse gravity, made it out, got ships back with invisible landscape, but was running out of fuel on that last level (I had accidentally shot two fuel cells during the game)...crashed near the end, then due to one of at least a couple of crap restarting points, it put me in a bad spot! Didn't make it out but I got 145,000. Hopefully photographic proof for the wiki will be up by tomorrow, but right now I'm confirming stuff to put up all at once: Peer --making sure you did Bedlam and Release and will add Fredrik's but did he only play EDIH? mozie --played Polar Rescue, Release and Thrust? Chainsaw --Rip Off, Release, MarineFox and Every Day is Halloween? Sketcz --"Played lots of games today, including Mine Storm, plus a varied mix of retail and homebrew." Let me know what the others were. Malban --? hcmffm --Every Day is Halloween, Vectrexagon, Star Castle, Rip Off |
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Post by kiwasabi on Nov 2, 2024 0:41:41 GMT -5
Today I played Pole Position, Unicorn Galaxy, Every Day Is Halloween, Release, and Marine Fox SketczYou're a very talented writer. I own and have read all three volumes of your Untold Stories of Japanese Developers trilogy, and just read your Dark Side of the Sun article. Very interesting stuff. I've got some theories and research I could discuss with you through PM or email. Regarding A Crush of Lucifer, @peer stated that the code was basically working from the framework of the original Mine Storm code, but that it wasn't written by John Hall. He also stated that based on the code that it appeared the game was still in development and only discontinued due to the Vectrex itself being discontinued. Perhaps this was being programmed by an otherwise unknown developer who learned how to make a game for the Vectrex by following Mine Storm's code base. This person may have been brought onto the team late in the short life of the Vectrex and never had a product actually get released. To me it seemed the gameplay was most similar to Polar Rescue, but Mark Indictor didn't work on ACOL. So it's all very mysterious. I didn't even know until recently that the programmer of ACOL is still not identified. It's too bad he didn't put in an Easter egg with his name and birth date like Mark Indictor did, that would make it a lot easier to find out. As for the gameplay, my guess is what was recovered in the prototype was likely in an alpha state that would have undergone much revision prior to being released. Most likely the levels would've been shortened significantly and the player would be able to continue from where they died rather than starting all the way back at the start. I'm sure the controls and collision detection would've been reworked to make it a smoother and less frustrating experience. Also I think the code would've been tweaked in order to minimize the flickering and low framerate. Personally I think the game would also be improved by making the blocks destroyable. Maybe with 2 hits, where the first one cracks the block and the second shot destroys it. For me the only fun of the game is really the tunnel and the fight with Lucifer himself. The rest of the game in the fields navigating towards Lucifer are boring, tedious, frustrating, and once at the block fortress... incredibly stressful and nerve wracking. I'm actually still recovering from all the time spent playing ACOL. That game drove me a bit mad. I realized that ACOL is almost like a real life version of Polybius since it flickers in such a way so as to induce a hypnotic state and headaches. I realized after all my playtime with it that it's truly an evil game in many ways. |
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Post by Peer on Nov 2, 2024 1:36:03 GMT -5
Peer --making sure you did Bedlam and Release and will add Fredrik's but did he only play EDIH? Fredrik also played Release, Marine Fox, Bedlam, and likely some other tournament games while I was not in the room. Twin sister Io play-tested tons of the Academy student games and had great fun with them, especially the doodle jump type games. I ended up playing some recreational Mine Storm, as the kids were occupying both my flash cartridges  |
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Post by Peer on Nov 2, 2024 1:52:10 GMT -5
I feel the creators vision for crush of lucifer was more than what was possible for them at the time using what limited resources were available and at some stage this was realised and abandoned by whoever the developer was, it was certainly a very ambitious project for the time when compared to the library already released. I am still convinced that it was abandoned only because the Vectrex was discontinued, and otherwise would have made its way to a final product release. There was already way too much work put into it, and way too much potential, to just shelve it. And I also do not think that it was too ambitious. The computational resources of the Vectrex were great compared to other contemporary systems. The pseudo 3D wireframe landscape reminds me of "3D Red Baron", a game for the Atari 800 XL at that time. So I find it not that surprising, that a similar game was tried on the Vectrex. And even the "flickering" is not that bad, if you keep in mind that today we are playing Lucifer on 40+ years old hardware. One of my consoles is in an excellent shape (the one I got in sealed mint condition), especially the CRT. On its screen, despite the low frame-rate, the flickering is much less prominent than on my other consoles. And the flickering is even less noticeable with a screen overlay than without one. So I guess that in the 80s, on a new Vectrex, the game would have looked quite great. |
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Post by Peer on Nov 2, 2024 2:12:43 GMT -5
Regarding A Crush of Lucifer, @peer stated that the code was basically working from the framework of the original Mine Storm code, but that it wasn't written by John Hall. He also stated that based on the code that it appeared the game was still in development and only discontinued due to the Vectrex itself being discontinued. Perhaps this was being programmed by an otherwise unknown developer who learned how to make a game for the Vectrex by following Mine Storm's code base. This person may have been brought onto the team late in the short life of the Vectrex and never had a product actually get released. To me it seemed the gameplay was most similar to Polar Rescue, but Mark Indictor didn't work on ACOL. So it's all very mysterious. I didn't even know until recently that the programmer of ACOL is still not identified. It's too bad he didn't put in an Easter egg with his name and birth date like Mark Indictor did, that would make it a lot easier to find out. As for the gameplay, my guess is what was recovered in the prototype was likely in an alpha state that would have undergone much revision prior to being released. Most likely the levels would've been shortened significantly and the player would be able to continue from where they died rather than starting all the way back at the start. I'm sure the controls and collision detection would've been reworked to make it a smoother and less frustrating experience. Also I think the code would've been tweaked in order to minimize the flickering and low framerate. Personally I think the game would also be improved by making the blocks destroyable. Maybe with 2 hits, where the first one cracks the block and the second shot destroys it. For me the only fun of the game is really the tunnel and the fight with Lucifer himself. The rest of the game in the fields navigating towards Lucifer are boring, tedious, frustrating, and once at the block fortress... incredibly stressful and nerve wracking. I'm actually still recovering from all the time spent playing ACOL. That game drove me a bit mad. I realized that ACOL is almost like a real life version of Polybius since it flickers in such a way so as to induce a hypnotic state and headaches. I realized after all my playtime with it that it's truly an evil game in many ways. The Lucifer code uses several subroutines of the Mine Storm code. Subroutines which are not documented in the official WT / GCE Programmer's Manuals. Thus the programmer must have been familiar with the Mine Storm code. But that is not surprising, as Mine Storm is the one resident game of the console, and its code is one of the earliest codes for that system. I find it only natural that someone new on the programming team would first take a look at that code to get some orientation of how to program the Vectrex. And there is potential in the Lucifer code. To me it looks like a typical alpha-release. Several parameters are set just randomly (e.g. distance from the portal), which is the easy way to get a playable prototype. Alpha testing would the try to determine settings which feel good and fair to the players, and which have a nice increasing difficulty, and that such settings would make their way into the code. And there is more. The wire-frame engine also allows for the horizon to move vertically (e.g. move up and down with the joystick being moved up and down). This is currently not used in the game. I experimentally tried it and it looks quite nice. Also, there is a very curious bug related to the display of the obstacles on the screen and to the collision detection. The original unpatched Lucifer code, as it was found, felt rather unplayable as the ship seemed to be randomly crashing. Chris Malcom fixed that by coding a workaround, which is the reason why the game is playable at all. But the true nature of the bug is different than what the workaround does. So I think the gameplay, as intended by the programmer, would have been slightly more difficult than it is now. I have to admit that I very much like that there are still mysteries in the (Vectrex) world, because I really enjoy such archeological digging through the codes. |
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Post by Malban on Nov 2, 2024 3:46:25 GMT -5
Played lots of games today, including Mine Storm, plus a varied mix of retail and homebrew. However, my thoughts have mostly been on: A Crush of LuciferIt was quite expensive at £70 delivered to the UK (shipping was painful!). But I find it a fascinating enigma. We don't know who made it. More than 40 years after it started development, and I'm flying through its 3D world wondering what its creator's thoughts were. Their hopes and aspirations. Their feelings at not being able to finish it. Are they aware it was found and released? What do they make of the overlay and manual, the story, the extras and changes, done by fans to make it complete? How close is it to what they envisioned when starting? Mostly I pondered why we haven't found this person, despite knowing who made all the other games. Surely it would be easy enough to track down and ask all of them? Mark Indictor says he'd never even heard of it. Was it a fresh faced young employee? Someone into heavy metal and the occult? Was it one of the veteran staff? Anyone who was 30 in 1982 will be over 70 today - if they're even still alive. Our window to speak with the creators of the Vectrex and its games is rapidly closing. I'm surprised there aren't more Vectrex interviews out there. This isn't like obscure Japanese developers - they are all English speaking Americans, and likely traceable through LinkedIn, social media, and other contacts. There should be a book filled with interviews with all the Vectrex staff, covering all the retail games, and all the homebrew games (yes, ALL the homebrew, which is so poorly documented). Maybe even a Netflix documentary. Today I played the last known legacy retail game for the Vectrex. I did not beat my high score, but I had a lot of fun. I still think that third section with the boxes is too damn long though! I linked the interviews I found so far on my pages… vide.malban.de/links |
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Post by Sketcz on Nov 2, 2024 7:41:11 GMT -5
Sketcz --"Played lots of games today, including Mine Storm, plus a varied mix of retail and homebrew." Let me know what the others were. I mainly wanted to play stuff different from the tournament, apart from Crush of Lucifer, which I played for the previous described reasons. Other games my list of games:
Cosmic Chasm (love it)
Crush of Lucifer (as above)
Hyperchase (great little racer) Tour de France (hate it) HOMEBREW: Beluga Dream (so relaxing) Cantina Band (just a music demo, but I annoy friends by sending them videos of me playing it) Cavern Rescue (love this, like a pseudo-sequel to Cosmic Chasm) Vec_man (Peer's school game - why no scoring?) Wet Cat Xmas Cart (two in one ROM; I discovered my NeoGeo controller does not have enough range to grab a present if dropped at the far end!) |
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Post by Sketcz on Nov 2, 2024 7:42:20 GMT -5
You're a very talented writer. I own and have read all three volumes of your Untold Stories of Japanese Developers trilogy, and just read your Dark Side of the Sun article. Very interesting stuff. I've got some theories and research I could discuss with you through PM or email. Thank you for the kind words! Yes, please feel free to PM me your email address. And we can correspond there. I tend to be slower replying to forum messages, whereas with email I can flag it at the top to reply next log in. Fantastic! Thank you. Also thank you for inclusion on that list!  |
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